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	<title>PCMech &#187; Software</title>
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		<title>5 Best Places to Track Down Video Game Mods</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/video-game-mods/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/video-game-mods/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 16:09:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=18093</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Pretty much my favorite thing about PC gaming can be boiled down to a single word: customization. There exists a great many dedicated, talented hobbyists and amateur designers out there who, given the proper tools, can cobble together some downright incredible experiences. A few of the video game mods I&#8217;ve played were actually better than [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Pretty much my favorite thing about PC gaming can be boiled down to a single word: customization. There exists a great many dedicated, talented hobbyists and amateur designers out there who, given the proper tools, can cobble together some downright incredible experiences. A few of the video game mods I&#8217;ve played were actually better than the original title.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18099" alt="Nehrim Fates Edge" src="http://cdn3.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Nehrim-Fates-Edge.jpg" width="575" height="359" /></p>
<p>If you&#8217;re looking to enrich your play experience -if you&#8217;re not quite done with a game, and want to see what else can be done with an engine &#8211; it&#8217;s definitely worth browsing through the vast library of mods and add-ons floating about the net. That&#8217;s where I come in: what follows is a list of the best, most common places to search in order to meet all your gaming needs.</p>
<h2>Steam Workshop</h2>
<p>Valve has done a great many amazing things with their digital distribution platform. Perhaps their most impressive step was the creation of the Steam Workshop, a huge collection of player-created assets easily navigable from within the platform.</p>
<p>Initially created for <em>Team Fortress 2</em>, the workshop has since expanded to include a huge array of developers and titles. Virtually anything can be found alongside  in the Workshop: new avatars and skins, new scenarios, new weapons&#8230;you get the idea.</p>
<p>At this point, it&#8217;s probably one of the best, most comprehensive libraries online. Plus, most of you who game on the PC are already using Steam, right?</p>
<h2>Reddit</h2>
<p>Given that it bills itself as &#8220;the front page of the Internet,&#8221; most of you probably aren&#8217;t terribly surprised to see Reddit make the list. When a particularly awesome mod hits the web, there&#8217;s a very good chance it will eventually make its way to the front page (or at the very least, to r/games or r/gaming).</p>
<p>In addition, there&#8217;s an entire sub-reddit devoted to the development, discussion, and advertisement of player-made content: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/GameMods/">r/GameMods</a>. Have a look around, it&#8217;s definitely worth the effort. Plus, if you&#8217;re a budding modder yourself, you&#8217;ll have plenty of opportunities to develop your craft and seek help from those more experienced than you.</p>
<h2>Mod DB</h2>
<p>Steam aside, I&#8217;d say that <a href="http://www.moddb.com/">ModDB</a> is the world&#8217;s largest library of third-party add-ons. It&#8217;s a thriving community for both modders and gamers, with a robust ratings/review system, job postings, game engines, modding tutorials, and an extensive forum where people can go to discuss game development, ask for help, or simply hang out and chat. It&#8217;s definitely worth a look, as some of the best mods ever developed were either posted here initially, or found their way here in short order.</p>
<h2>In-Game</h2>
<p>Sometimes, you don&#8217;t really need to do a whole lot of searching. If you&#8217;re playing a title where custom games are common, you can probably find a great deal of mods, add-ons, and custom maps floating around in the lobby.</p>
<p>Take <em>Warcraft III</em> as a (slightly dated) example: Dota, perhaps one of the most popular mods in history, got its start as a custom map created with the title&#8217;s built-in modding tools. As such, before you start looking elsewhere, it might well be worth first booting up multiplayer and seeing what it has to offer.</p>
<h2>Gaming Blogs</h2>
<p>Last, but certainly not least, keep your ear to the ground in the games industry. A great many gaming publications- Kotaku, IGN, and Giantbomb among them &#8211; will often feature the best made, most enjoyable, and most popular mods in amongst their news-feeds, and some (such as Gamefront) even include a section entirely dedicated to player-made content.</p>
<p>Twitter, too, is a good website to watch.  Basically, just pay attention to the news, follow the top blogs on Twitter, and you&#8217;re bound to come across something good eventually.</p>
<p>Any other sources you folks can call to mind that I&#8217;ve missed? Give me a shout in the comments!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>11 Hidden Windows 7 Features You Probably Don&#8217;t Know About</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/windows-7-hidden-features/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/windows-7-hidden-features/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 15:25:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Windows 7]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=18070</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There&#8217;s actually quite a bit more to Windows 7 than a lot of users seem to realize. This is actually somewhat surprising, given how long the operating system has been on the market &#8211; and given the fact that Microsoft has already (perhaps mistakenly) moved on to pimping Windows 8. Given that many of us [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-15251" alt="Windows 7 Icon" src="http://cdn3.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Windows-7-Icon.jpeg" width="256" height="256" />There&#8217;s actually quite a bit more to Windows 7 than a lot of users seem to realize. This is actually somewhat surprising, given how long the operating system has been on the market &#8211; and given the fact that Microsoft has already (perhaps mistakenly) moved on to pimping Windows 8.</p>
<p>Given that many of us are likely planning to stick with Windows 7 for the foreseeable future, it wouldn&#8217;t be such a bad idea to take a bit of time and learn about all these secret goodies and hidden gems, no? Today, we&#8217;re going to have a quick look at 11 different features, utilities, and apps built-in to the operating system.</p>
<p>Now, I&#8217;ll admit that some of these are more obscure than others, just as I&#8217;ll acknowledge that many of the more hardcore Windows fanatics out there have probably discovered the majority of these gadgets on their own. Still, that doesn&#8217;t make them any less useful, although some are most certainly more obscure than others. Many of the items on this list actually serve functions that most users download secondary utilities to accomplish.</p>
<h2>Snipping(Screenshots)</h2>
<p>This one actually surprised me a bit: Windows 7 actually comes with its own screenshot utility. Simply type &#8220;snipping&#8221; into Windows Search, and you&#8217;ll be brought to the &#8220;snipping tool.&#8221;</p>
<p>The utility allows you to take four different kinds of screenshots: full-screen, window, rectangular, or free-form. Further, the tool comes with its own built-in image editor, allowing you to highlight, mark, and color the shot, as well as save it as an HTML, JPG, PNG, or GIF file.</p>
<h2>Sticky Notes</h2>
<p>Here&#8217;s a rather niche app for all of you: sticky notes allows you to create small, digital reminders that you can plop down all over your desktop.</p>
<p>You can create as many of these notes as you want, and select from a variety of different colors as you do so (though the default is yellow). Additionally, you can use the full array of Microsoft Word keyboard shortcuts while typing out your notes.</p>
<p>Could be useful if you don&#8217;t have an actual sticky note to paste to your screen, I suppose.</p>
<h2>Magnifier</h2>
<p>The Magnifier tool can be found on the Control Panel, under the &#8220;Ease of Access Center.&#8221; Simply navigate there and turn the magnifier on. Once activated, it can be set to either full-screen, lens, or docked mode.</p>
<p>Lens will change your mouse to a magnifying glass, zooming in to whatever you place it over. Full Screen will fill the whole screen with the magnified image, while Docked Mode will replace the upper half of your screen with the magnified bottom half.</p>
<h2>Remote Assistance</h2>
<p>Remote Assistance can be a useful tool for troubleshooting computer problems. Let&#8217;s say you&#8217;re having an issue with something on your system, but your tech-savvy friend can&#8217;t come over to help you. Simply navigate to the control panel, and look under &#8220;System.&#8221; From there, you can see a few options relating to Remote Assistance: one will be related to actually providing the assistance, while the other sends the invite.</p>
<h2>&#8220;Problem Steps&#8221;</h2>
<p>You can also use the &#8220;Problem Steps Recorder&#8221; (type psr in Windows Search) to record a play-by-play of everything you&#8217;re doing on your system. Once you&#8217;ve started recording, it&#8217;ll start compiling an MHT file with screenshots of all your monitors along with a description of what you&#8217;re doing. Once you&#8217;ve recorded whatever it is you&#8217;re having trouble with, turn off the recorder, save the file, and send it to whoever&#8217;s helping you.</p>
<h2>Sound Recorder</h2>
<p>Windows 7 also features a very rudimentary sound recording utility. It&#8217;s not good for much aside from making voice memos (or perhaps recording a meeting), but it&#8217;s handy in a pinch if you don&#8217;t have any alternatives.</p>
<p>The only file-type it&#8217;s capable of recording is WMA. You&#8217;ll need to use an audio converter if you want a different format.</p>
<h2>Malicious Software Removal Tool</h2>
<p>Though it&#8217;s most definitely not an ideal solution, Windows 7 comes prepackaged with a simple malicious software removal tool. Type &#8220;mrt&#8221; into Windows Search.</p>
<p>Given that the definitions list is quite limited, I would highly recommend against using this as your primary antivirus program. It&#8217;s more of a failsafe, in the event that your regular AV misses something.</p>
<h2>Disc Burner</h2>
<p>This one&#8217;s pretty straightforward (and not really hidden, either). If you&#8217;re trying to burn an ISO file to a disc, the Disc Burner tool will pop up (assuming you don&#8217;t have any other utilities installed). It&#8217;s fairly rudimentary, like many of the tools here, but it nevertheless serves its purpose quite well.</p>
<h2>Power Efficiency Report</h2>
<p>This rather nifty application gives you a run down of how energy-efficient your system is, and gives details on what applications, processes, and potential system errors are running it into the ground.</p>
<p>To access it, run CMD (Command prompt) as an administrator. Once you&#8217;re in, simply type &#8220;powercfg /energy. There&#8217;ll be a 60-second check, and then you&#8217;ll be notified where the log file has been stored.</p>
<h2>System Health Utility</h2>
<p>Computers aren&#8217;t indestructible. The hardware within them tends to age and break down over time, while the software starts to develop bugs and glitches as it putters away at whatever you&#8217;ve set it to do. In order to keep your system in top shape, it may be worthwhile to run a tool known as the &#8220;System Diagnostics Report.&#8221;</p>
<p>In order to access this application, simply run &#8220;perfmon.msc.&#8221; You&#8217;ll have a 60 second lag, after which you&#8217;ll be given a report on what&#8217;s wrong with your computer (and possibly how it can be fixed).</p>
<h2>Screen Calibration</h2>
<p>Last, but not least, if you&#8217;re having some issues with the colors on your desktop, you can use Windows 7&#8242;s built in screen calibration utility to fix the problem. Simply run &#8220;dccw,&#8221; and you&#8217;ll be able to calibrate brightness, sharpness, contrast, and color.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s it for today. A fairly long list, but by no means a comprehensive one. I&#8217;m aware there are plenty more hidden goodies where these ones came from. With that said, do you know of any secret tools or cool features that I missed? Drop me a line in the comments!</p>
<p>Via <a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-hidden-tools-windows-7/">Make Use Of</a>, <a href="http://blog.tune-up.com/tips-and-tricks/five-little-known-windows-7-features/">Tune-Up</a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Just Manager &#8211; A Lightweight And Free Windows Explorer Alternative</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/windows-explorer-alternative/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/windows-explorer-alternative/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:37:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tech Lifestyle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[file management]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[windows explorer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=18042</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Windows Explorer isn&#8217;t a terrible platform for file management, but it&#8217;s certainly not one of the best. I mean, it works well enough if you&#8217;re just trying to organize a few documents and folders on your hard drive, even if every iteration does have a few faults. Once you start getting into larger quantities of [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Windows Explorer isn&#8217;t a terrible platform for file management, but it&#8217;s certainly not one of the best. I mean, it works well enough if you&#8217;re just trying to organize a few documents and folders on your hard drive, even if every iteration does have a few faults. Once you start getting into larger quantities of files or content on apps like Dropbox, things start to fall apart fairly quickly.  It&#8217;s a problem as old as Windows itself.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s thus not terribly surprising, then, that so many third party developers have come forth with alternatives. There exists a huge array of platforms and applications designed to overhaul the rather cumbersome management system with which Windows users are saddled by default.</p>
<p>The primary problem with most of these tools? They require a hard installation to use. For some of you, this might not be much of a problem &#8211; after all, you&#8217;re trying to do away with Explorer, and it&#8217;s up to you what you install on your system, right?</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn2.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Just-manager-1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18044" alt="Just-manager-1" src="http://cdn2.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Just-manager-1.jpg" width="575" height="324" /></a></p>
<p>Sometimes, however, installing an app is neither feasible nor advisable. If you&#8217;re using a system that doesn&#8217;t actually belong to you (such as at work, in a library, or at an Internet cafe), you&#8217;re not likely to be either willing or able to boot up one of the more common file explorers. For all intents and purposes, you&#8217;re stuck with what you&#8217;ve got, right?</p>
<p>Not necessarily. I&#8217;d like to introduce you to <a href="http://justmanager.ru" target="_blank">Just Manager</a>: a free, lightweight, and portable alternative to Windows Explorer.</p>
<h2>Installation</h2>
<p>Under the Downloads heading <a href="http://justmanager.ru/downloads/" target="_blank">on the Just Manager Website</a>, you&#8217;ll see two different versions of the application: standard and portable; each one with a 32 bit and 64 bit installation (note that using the installer will allow you to select between portable and standard, as well). The primary difference between the two is that the &#8216;portable&#8217; option comes packaged in a .zip file, and doesn&#8217;t actually require any installation. Just extract it onto a USB drive, and you&#8217;re good to go: you&#8217;ve a file management system you can bring with you pretty much anywhere.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s one of the ways Just Manager defines itself from all the other third-party file systems: it doesn&#8217;t force you to jump through hoops to use it. It&#8217;s literally just &#8220;plug in and go.&#8221;</p>
<p>But how does it stack up in terms of features?</p>
<h2>How Does It Work?</h2>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18045" alt="Just-manager-2" src="http://cdn2.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Just-manager-2.jpg" width="575" height="324" /></p>
<p>The first thing you&#8217;ll probably notice about Just Manager is that it&#8217;s really not much to look at. The interface is clean, simple, and perhaps even a little ugly. That&#8217;s honestly not much of a problem, truth be told:  the spartan nature of how the application is laid out means it&#8217;s incredibly easy to use, with no garish bells and whistles to distract you while you&#8217;re looking through your files and folders.</p>
<p>By default, you start with two panes in which you can view files, though you can up this number to as many as 16(in order to do this, simply change the Column or Rows count under Settings-&gt;View).  Each of these panes can also support a virtually infinite number of tabs.</p>
<p>At the top of each panel, you&#8217;ll see information disc space and size, while at the bottom you&#8217;ll see information on the folder you&#8217;re currently viewing. Further, each panel can be visually customized in a wide variety of ways, including changing how the files are viewed. The view options in this case are identical to the options you&#8217;d find in the standard Windows Explorer: List, Tiles, Icons, Small Icons, or Details. A bar across the bottom of the application provides easy actions to functions like folder creation and deletion, while a whole list of (configurable) keyboard shortcuts can be perused and modified in the &#8220;settings&#8221; tab.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18046" alt="Just-manager-3" src="http://cdn2.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Just-manager-3.jpg" width="575" height="324" /></p>
<p>It&#8217;s here that we come to another one of Just Manager&#8217;s useful &#8211; and rather impressive- features: file highlighting. The application is set up so that users can select files of a particular type to be displayed with a different font color than other files. By default, the files that are set to be displayed in such a fashion are Executables, Hidden and System Files, Compressed Files and Reparse Point Files. Any other file types that you wish to highlight can be added to the list with ease.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s as good a segway to bring up one of Just Manager&#8217;s most powerful advantages: the staggering degree to which it can be customized. I&#8217;m not going to go fully into detail on just how deep this customization goes, but I feel it&#8217;s safe to say that it&#8217;s flexible enough that virtually anyone using it will be able to tweak it to their liking.  This also includes visual themes and layouts, as well: if you don&#8217;t particularly care for the somewhat ugly, old-school skin of Just Manager, you can change it.</p>
<p>Lastly, Just Manager includes full support for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Transfer_Protocol" target="_blank">FTP</a>, online documents and network drives.</p>
<h2>Closing Thoughts</h2>
<p>Just Manager is fully featured, portable, and powerful. It&#8217;s both efficient and stable, and incredibly easy to use.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s not to say it doesn&#8217;t have its weaknesses:  it seems to have a few issues with the recognition of tablets and other, similar devices, and it may not be as versatile as some of the better-known, paid alternatives.</p>
<p>Still, if you&#8217;re looking for a free, easy to use, and quick to install file manager to address your Windows Explorer woes, you could do a lot worse than Just Manager.</p>
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		<title>What Happens To Your Inactive Google Account When You&#8217;re Gone?</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/inactive-google-account-afterlife/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/inactive-google-account-afterlife/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:11:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tech Lifestyle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Inactive Account Manager]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Online Privacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[User Content]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[User Information]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=17992</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As I&#8217;ve said time and again, we&#8217;re not exactly living in an era where user privacy is particularly valued or respected &#8211; at least in the Western world. No user has as much control over their personal information (and who can access it) as they should, and in most cases, the terms of service with [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As I&#8217;ve said time and again, we&#8217;re not exactly living in an era where user privacy is particularly valued or respected &#8211; at least in the Western world. No user has as much control over their personal information (and who can access it) as they should, and in most cases, the terms of service with which users sign away their rights to their privacy tend to be so arcane and obtuse as to be nearly unreadable by anyone without an hour or two to kill.</p>
<p>In such an environment, it&#8217;s nice to see an organization taking at least a small step in the right direction.</p>
<p>Last week, Google debuted a new feature across its family of websites, though its reasons for doing so were just a touch&#8230;morbid. The initiative is known as <em>The Inactive Account Manager</em>, and it essentially allows users to customize how their accounts will be managed in the event of their death. That&#8217;s the official word on it, anyway.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Not many of us like thinking about death &#8212; especially our own,&#8221; reads Google&#8217;s explanation of the IAM. &#8220;But making plans for what happens after you&#8217;re gone is really important for the people you leave behind. So today, we&#8217;re launching a new feature that makes it easy to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18001" alt="inactive" src="http://cdn3.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/inactive.jpg" width="575" height="508" /></p>
<p>This feature isn&#8217;t yet available for Google Apps, but regular users of Google&#8217;s services such as Gmail and Google+ can dictate the fate of their messages and data if their account becomes inactive for three, six, or twelve months. Users can choose total deletion of specific information, a complete wipe of every bit of data, or the forwarding of particularly important information (or everything, if you&#8217;re so inclined) to trusted contacts connected to the user through one&#8217;s Google account.</p>
<p>This is all accessible via your <a href="https://www.google.com/settings/account" target="_blank">Google Account settings page</a>.</p>
<p>So that you don&#8217;t inadvertently clear out your account, the IAM also allows you to set it up so that it alerts you before your set time-out period is up. That way, you can log back into your account to avoid losing access to your information.</p>
<p>All told, it seems like a rather useful tool, albeit a rather niche one, and as I&#8217;ve already said, it&#8217;s most definitely a step in the right direction.</p>
<p>Still, I&#8217;d argue that online organizations &#8211; including Google &#8211;  have a long way to go before they can truly be considered respectful of user rights. The IAM is certainly convenient, but one has to wonder if this is really an act of goodwill on Google&#8217;s part. After all, data on someone who&#8217;s no longer using their services (whether by reason of death or simply disinterest) is virtually useless to marketing firms. It may well be that Google is trying to keep its own stores of user data more organized. That&#8217;s a rather grim perspective, isn&#8217;t it?</p>
<p>Anyway, what do you folks think of Google&#8217;s Inactive Account Manager? Seem like something you&#8217;ll use?</p>
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		<title>Cut Down on Writing Distractions With This Simple App</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/cut-down-writing-distractions/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/cut-down-writing-distractions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:02:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[applications]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[productivity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Word Processors]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=17993</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One tool I use quite frequently in my freelance work is Microsoft Word. And, Word introduces a fair amount of writing distractions just by way of the interface. The problem, I think, lies with all the bells and whistles Microsoft has apparently insisted on jamming into their product. So much of it just seems so [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>One tool I use quite frequently in my freelance work is Microsoft Word. And, Word introduces a fair amount of writing distractions just by way of the interface.</p>
<p>The problem, I think, lies with all the bells and whistles Microsoft has apparently insisted on jamming into their product. So much of it just seems so tacitly unnecessary, and the wide array of formatting (and auto-format) options often seem to cause more harm than good. That&#8217;s to say nothing of the visual clutter that&#8217;s only a simple glance upwards &#8211; a chaotic array of buttons, menus, and icons.</p>
<p>Most of us have enough distractions without our word processing software hurling more in our faces.</p>
<p>What if you want to get away from all that? What if you&#8217;re looking for a simple, no-nonsense alternative? What if, instead of dealing with all the glitz and glitter of so many modern word processors, you simply want to write? A novel idea, isn&#8217;t it?</p>
<p>Make Use Of <a href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/writeroom-the-best-mac-app-for-distraction-free-writing/">recently profiled an application which will let you do just that</a> - at least, if you&#8217;re on a Mac. It&#8217;s called WriteRoom, and it&#8217;s a program essentially designed to allow for the complete elimination of all outside distractions while you write.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-18003" alt="writeroom" src="http://cdn4.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/writeroom.png" width="619" height="281" /></p>
<p>To this end, the most noteworthy features of the application are, in order, Full Screen, Full Screen Single Viewing, and Typewriter Scrolling. Full Screen and Full Screen Single are pretty much what&#8217;s written on the box: they&#8217;ll put WriteRoom front and center on your monitor (or, in the case of multiple monitors, a single one), hiding all other applications along with your computer&#8217;s desktop. In other words, the project your working on will be right in your face, and you&#8217;ll have no excuse not to work on it.</p>
<p>Typewriter Scrolling, meanwhile, automatically centers the cursor on the most recently typed line of text, which itself is kept right in the middle of the document.</p>
<p>The interface of WriteRoom is, not surprisingly, not all that much to look at. It&#8217;s designed to be a lightweight word processor, after all. Including a bunch of garish, aesthetically pleasing menu bars would run directly counter to what the developers were looking to accomplish here.  One interesting feature is &#8220;Reading Time,&#8221; which will have the application calculate roughly how long it will take for a reader to make their way through your document.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, WriteRoom isn&#8217;t perfect. For one, it&#8217;s not actually available on PC, so those of you who aren&#8217;t on a Mac will have to look elsewhere. Second, it only works with Rich Text and Plain Text documents. Word Documents are apparently off the table, which actually limits to a great degree what you&#8217;ll be able to do with WriteRoom. And last, but certainly not least, it&#8217;s not free. If you&#8217;re looking to pick up a copy for yourself, it&#8217;ll run you at $9.99 (which, to be fair, is a reasonable price).</p>
<p>Those of you interested in purchasing a copy can look <a href="http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom">here</a>. It&#8217;s available for both Mac and iOS.</p>
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		<title>Razer Comms Might Well Change Video Gaming VOIP Forever</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/razer-comms-video-gaming-voip/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/razer-comms-video-gaming-voip/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:43:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[voip]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=17975</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For those of you who don&#8217;t know a whole lot about video games, Razer as an organization is rather dear to most people who play them (at least on the PC). Since it hit its stride back in 2004,  it&#8217;s established itself as an industry leader in gaming-related peripherals. It produces some of the best [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>For those of you who don&#8217;t know a whole lot about video games, <a href="http://www.razerzone.com/" target="_blank">Razer</a> as an organization is rather dear to most people who play them (at least on the PC). Since it hit its stride back in 2004,  it&#8217;s established itself as an industry leader in gaming-related peripherals. It produces some of the best and highest quality products on the market, and Razer&#8217;s marketing is positively brilliant. It&#8217;s centered on one simple idea:</p>
<p>By Gamers, For Gamers.</p>
<p>Admittedly, I&#8217;m one of those guys who could probably be considered a Razer fanboy. What can I say? They have their finger to the pulse of gaming, and I&#8217;ve yet to have a problem with anything I&#8217;ve purchased from them. Even with this in mind, I was somewhat hesitant when I was informed that they&#8217;d just put their own proprietary VOIP solution into open beta.</p>
<p>The market&#8217;s more than a little flooded with VOIP clients, particularly where video games are concerned. You&#8217;ve got TeamSpeak, Mumble, Skype, Ventrilo, Xfire&#8230;you get the idea. Understandably, I wasn&#8217;t entirely certain what Razer was capable of bringing to the gaming VOIP table. What exactly could they deliver that all these other clients so sorely lacked?</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17978" alt="screenshot1" src="http://cdn3.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/screenshot1.jpg" width="575" height="323" /></p>
<p>Still, my roommate &#8211; and several of his friends &#8211; were rather insistent as to the quality of Razer&#8217;s new offering. This, coupled with my prior love of the organization, essentially made the decision for me. I decided to sit down and give Comms a try in one of the mediums it&#8217;s most likely to be used: Riot Games&#8217; <em>League of Legends</em>.</p>
<h2>Testing Out Gaming VOIP From Razer</h2>
<p>The install process was quick and relatively painless, and the first thing I noticed about the app was how slick everything looked. Razer decided to go with its tried-and-true chrome black and neon green color scheme for the Comms interface, and as a result, everything looks incredibly snazzy.</p>
<p>After getting the app onto my computer and setting up an account, I logged in and was good to go. Anyone who&#8217;s used a chat client should have no trouble familiarizing themselves with the interface and layout of Comms. It&#8217;s quite simple to use.</p>
<p>You&#8217;ve got four tabs on the main window that are available to you: Contacts, Groups, Games, and Notifications. The first and last are rather self-explanatory, so I&#8217;m not going to go into much detail. Instead, we&#8217;ll discuss the middle two: Groups and Games.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17977" alt="Comms-Screenshot" src="http://cdn3.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Comms-Screenshot.jpg" width="575" height="366" /></p>
<p>The &#8220;Groups&#8221; tab basically lets you create your own private chat server. It&#8217;s extremely simple to do: simply name your group, name the lobby of the group, then select the group&#8217;s category.  If you feel the need, you can also signify which game the group is related to.</p>
<p>After fiddling around with it for a bit, I can honestly say I&#8217;m impressed. As near as I can tell, you can create a virtually infinite number of channels (presumably, a near-infinite number of players can be chatting simultaneously, as well), set up group mods and admins, and password-protect the whole array.</p>
<p>The &#8220;Games&#8221; tab lets you launch games directly from the Comms client, which detects what you&#8217;ve got installed. A nice touch, and an incredibly convenient one.</p>
<p>These are just bonuses, however. The best part about the platform is undoubtedly the sound quality. It blows Mumble and Teamspeak out of the water and it puts Skype to shame. The addition of an in-game overlay (which, as of beta is a bit buggy&#8230;) allows you to see who&#8217;s talking at any given time in a chatroom and access your groups and channels without having to tab out, while you can still set up private text and voice chats at your leisure.</p>
<p>Have I mentioned the entire thing is extremely lightweight, as well?</p>
<p>Though I was hesitant about Comms at first, my brief time with the beta has me more or less convinced. If Razer&#8217;s competitors don&#8217;t make some very big changes very soon, this app might well become the new standard for in-game voice chat. You can check out the open beta <a href="http://www.razerzone.com/comms">here.</a></p>
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		<title>Does the Mac Need An Antivirus Utility?</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/mac-need-antivirus/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/mac-need-antivirus/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:42:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apple Viruses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mac Defender]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mac Viruses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[OS X]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=17925</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Even though it&#8217;s been almost two years since the Mac Defender scandal, I&#8217;m sure the events of that debacle are still fresh on everyone&#8217;s mind. It was, without a doubt, the worst viral epidemic Apple has ever had to deal with. The organization&#8217;s ham-handed response to the whole thing (trying to deny it existed until [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Even though it&#8217;s been almost two years since the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/25/apple-mac-defender-malware_n_866637.html" target="_blank">Mac Defender scandal</a>, I&#8217;m sure the events of that debacle are still fresh on everyone&#8217;s mind. It was, without a doubt, the worst viral epidemic Apple has ever had to deal with. The organization&#8217;s ham-handed response to the whole thing (trying to deny it existed until such denial became impossible) only exacerbated the situation. I&#8217;m sure there was at least a fair number of Apple&#8217;s fans which turned against the organization as a result.</p>
<p>The problem, I think, was that Apple was still trying to maintain an image of its operating system as one which was entirely safe &#8211;  entirely virus-free. Whereas a Windows user was constantly under threat from all angles, with thousands upon thousands of viruses floating around the Internet at any given time, people who used a Mac were free to surf without a care in the world. After all, computer viruses simply weren&#8217;t made to infect Apple products.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17937" alt="Mac-Defender-Scare" src="http://cdn4.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Mac-Defender-Scare.jpg" width="575" height="431" /></p>
<p>While it would certainly be nice to think that this is due to OS X&#8217;s inherently secure nature, the reality seems to be a bit less glamorous&#8230;</p>
<p>Viruses don&#8217;t run on OS X because most criminals simply can&#8217;t be bothered with it. Windows is a far more common, more widespread operating system. As a result, the possible returns on a virus coded for a PC versus one coded for a Mac are much, much higher.</p>
<p>That, I think, is one rude awakening that Mac users were forced into with Mac Defender:</p>
<p>Inherently, OS X is no more secure than Windows. If anything, it&#8217;s even less secure. After all, most PC users have at least one virus scanning utility installed, if not a whole antivirus suite. It&#8217;s practically a necessity in today&#8217;s computing environment. After all, even safe browsing practices can only go so far, right?</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17936" alt="Mac-Antivirus" src="http://cdn.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Mac-Antivirus.jpg" width="575" height="323" /></p>
<p>If they haven&#8217;t done so already, Apple &#8211; and its users &#8211; need to wake up and smell the coffee. As the platform gains popularity and more users start flocking to it, cyber criminals are going to start noticing. Mac Defender wasn&#8217;t the first viral threat for OS X, nor will it be the last by any stretch.  Criminals aren&#8217;t stupid &#8211; if the market is there, they&#8217;re going to exploit it, either through drive-by downloads or through social engineering. Either way, steps need to be taken by OS X users to protect themselves, just the same as if they were using a PC.</p>
<p>Are computer viruses less of a threat on OS X? Yes. That goes without saying. There are far fewer viruses -and far fewer genuine security threats &#8211; floating around in the wild if you&#8217;re on a Mac. That doesn&#8217;t mean they aren&#8217;t out there, nor does it mean you shouldn&#8217;t install some breed of antivirus solution. At the end of the day, the computer virus as a concept is system agnostic.</p>
<p>In other words, don&#8217;t let your operating system lull you into a false sense of security. Install an antivirus, run regular scans, and practice safe browsing. <a href="http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-mac" target="_blank">aVast has anti-virus for the Mac</a>, and there are other options.</p>
<p>Otherwise you, too, might be in for a rude awakening.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>How To Prevent Your Anti-Virus From Devouring Your System Memory</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/how-to-prevent-your-antivirus-from-devouring-your-system-memory/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/how-to-prevent-your-antivirus-from-devouring-your-system-memory/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:34:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=17952</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Unless you&#8217;re planning to disconnect your computer completely from every network in existence, you&#8217;re going to need an antivirus solution of some kind. It&#8217;s a big, dangerous world out there on the web and an unprotected system isn&#8217;t likely to last all that long. You need a means of protecting yourself from the plethora of [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Unless you&#8217;re planning to disconnect your computer completely from every network in existence, you&#8217;re going to need an antivirus solution of some kind. It&#8217;s a big, dangerous world out there on the web and an unprotected system isn&#8217;t likely to last all that long. You need a means of protecting yourself from the plethora of nasty worms and viruses to be found online.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, depending on what program you&#8217;re using, the process of protecting yourself might send your system memory straight into the toilet. Antivirus programs are notorious for being blatant memory hogs, taking up so much that it can honestly end up making older systems completely unusable.  It might end up being the case that you might as well just open up your computer to a virus or two &#8211; after all, it&#8217;d probably work just as well.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17958" alt="Computer-Virus-HD-Wallpaper" src="http://cdn3.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Computer-Virus-HD-Wallpaper.jpg" width="575" height="323" /></p>
<p>How can you rein your antivirus in? How can you reduce the amount of memory it&#8217;s using in order to actually get some work done? In short, how can you have the best of both worlds?</p>
<h2>Uninstall and Find a Lightweight Option</h2>
<p>Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;d personally recommend. If you&#8217;re using anything from Norton or McAfee, uninstall. Those two antivirus solutions are known to be some of the most memory-heavy antivirus suites in existence, and I&#8217;ve never seen a computer that doesn&#8217;t suffer a bit of slowdown simply by having them installed.</p>
<p>Thankfully, a number of lightweight (and free) solutions exist online. <a href="http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/" target="_blank">Panda</a> is one such solution, and <a href="http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security-essentials-download" target="_blank">Microsoft Security Essentials</a> is another. If you go this route, you&#8217;re probably not going to have a problem with memory usage any longer. Disregard the rest of this guide, if that&#8217;s the case.</p>
<h2>Don&#8217;t Use Real-Time Protection</h2>
<p>One of the reasons some antivirus solutions take up so much space is that they&#8217;re actively scanning for threats. They&#8217;re looking at each file you download (and each file you access, in some cases) and poring over it to see if it has any known viral signatures.</p>
<p>Turning this off can cause a marked increase in performance. Unfortunately, it can also open you up to a few threats if you aren&#8217;t careful. Use at your own caution.</p>
<h2>Reconfigure The AV</h2>
<p>Most antivirus applications have a fairly full-featured set of customization options. Take a look through your antivirus&#8217;s settings page and see if there&#8217;s any way you can reduce the amount of processing power it&#8217;s gobbling up at key moments.</p>
<p>Some platforms actually have an option where they&#8217;ll tone things down at a particular time of day, or if you&#8217;re working on something important. For some of the more complex suites, you can also disable individual functions and processes if you think you aren&#8217;t going to be using them. Again, do this at your own risk. You could end up borking your system if you&#8217;re not careful, after all.</p>
<h2>Change Processor Priority</h2>
<p>Last, but certainly not least, if you&#8217;re particularly desperate you can use the task manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL or CTRL+Shift+ESC) to locate the process (or processes) related to your antivirus platform and change the processor affinity to &#8216;low.&#8217; This will ensure that, when your system starts using a particularly large degree of processing power, the platform might be denied resources.</p>
<p>This is hardly an ideal solution, and not one I&#8217;d generally recommend. This could end up causing you some issues with functionality, and some AV platforms don&#8217;t actually allow you to change their properties in the task manager. It&#8217;s likely a defense mechanism against a virus attempting to shut the platform down, but it serves the secondary purpose of nullifying this method in most cases.</p>
<p>Honestly? Just get a lightweight antivirus and call it a day.</p>
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		<title>Which is the Worst Company in the World for User Privacy?</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/which-is-the-worst-company-in-the-world-for-user-privacy/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/which-is-the-worst-company-in-the-world-for-user-privacy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:34:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[User Privacy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=17903</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s pretty common knowledge that personal privacy isn&#8217;t what it used to be. Plenty of folks say privacy as we once knew it is dead in the water. To put it frankly, privacy no longer exists. Between data mining tracking cookies, invasive EULAs, and shaky governmental legislation, the privacy of your personal information in the [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It&#8217;s pretty common knowledge that personal privacy isn&#8217;t what it used to be. Plenty of folks say privacy as we once knew it is dead in the water. To put it frankly, privacy no longer exists.</p>
<p>Between data mining tracking cookies, invasive EULAs, and shaky governmental legislation, the privacy of your personal information in the digital realm stands on extremely shaky ground. Many organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), have been making an active effort to safeguard user rights and keep user privacy, well&#8230;private. Unfortunately, for every organization which pays heed to the sanctity of personal information, there are several which don&#8217;t really care all that much.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15947" alt="big-brother-is-watching-you_thumbna" src="http://cdn4.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/big-brother-is-watching-you_thumbna.png" width="400" height="300" /></p>
<p>Some are worse than others, of course.</p>
<p>Ladies and gentlemen, meet <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/who-has-your-back" target="_blank">The Privacy Report</a>. The Electronic Frontier Foundation took it upon itself to rank several of the best-known, most highly-trafficked websites and organizations in the digital realm on how much they cared about their user&#8217;s rights. These organizations were rated based on five criteria(via <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/who-has-your-back" target="_blank">EFF</a>):</p>
<ol>
<li><b>A public commitment to inform users when their data is sought by the government.</b> To earn a star in this category, Internet companies must promise to tell users when their data is being sought by the government unless prohibited by law. This gives users a chance to defend themselves against overreaching government demands for their data.</li>
<li><b>Transparency about when and how often companies hand data to the government.</b> This category has two parts. Companies earn a half-star in this category if they publish statistics on how often they provide user data to governments worldwide. Companies also earn a half-star if they make public any policies they have about sharing data with the government, such as guides for law enforcement. (If a company doesn’t have law enforcement guidelines at all, though, we don’t hold that against them). Companies that publish both statistics and law enforcement guidelines receive a full star.</li>
<li><b>Willingness to Fight for users&#8217; privacy rights in the courts.</b> To earn recognition in this category, companies must have a public record of resisting overbroad government demands for access to user content in court. Not all companies will be put in the position of having to defend their users before a judge, but those who do deserve special recognition.</li>
<li><b>Willingness to Fight for users’ privacy in Congress.</b> Internet companies earn a star in this category if they support efforts to modernize electronic privacy laws to defend users in the digital age by joining the Digital Due Process coalition.</li>
</ol>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17908" alt="EFF-Who-Has-Your-Back" src="http://cdn2.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/EFF-Who-Has-Your-Back.jpg" width="575" height="617" /></p>
<p>The results are&#8230;rather telling. Verizon, Skype, Myspace, and FourSquare all come in at dead last, with nary a star between them. These organizations evidently care nothing for their users, nor are they particularly concerned with safeguarding user privacy. Neither Apple nor Microsoft nor AT&amp;T fared much better, with a pathetic one star each. Facebook, meanwhile, had a measly star and a half for fighting in congress and half-heartedly informing its users about government requests.</p>
<p>So&#8230;there you have it. Surprising absolutely no one, some of the largest organizations in the world seem to care little about the privacy of their users (if indeed they care at all). It&#8217;s more than a little disheartening that these organizations control such a large swathe of the means by which we communicate: social networks, smartphones, web browsers&#8230;you get the idea.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, this list actually represents a marked improvement over last year&#8217;s results for all the major online service providers. That&#8217;s both encouraging and discouraging at once: while it&#8217;s certainly heartening to see privacy taking more of a front-seat in the considerations of these organizations, it&#8217;s also a little distressing to think how bad things likely were in 2011. The 2013 report should be coming up very soon &#8211; we&#8217;ll see if they&#8217;ve continued to improve, or if they&#8217;ve sunk back into old habits.</p>
<p>Hopefully, we&#8217;ll notice the latter.</p>
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		<title>Tool Breaks Down How Much You Play [Steam Gaming]</title>
		<link>http://www.pcmech.com/article/tool-breaks-down-how-much-you-play-steam-gaming/</link>
		<comments>http://www.pcmech.com/article/tool-breaks-down-how-much-you-play-steam-gaming/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:45:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Nick Greene</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Software]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[steam]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.pcmech.com/?p=17720</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s another one for all you gamers out there &#8211; a nifty little homebrew utility which will help you figure out how much time you&#8217;ve spent playing each of the games in your steam library, which games you&#8217;ve actually played, which games you&#8217;ve never touched, and which games you spent the most time on. For [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Here&#8217;s another one for all you gamers out there &#8211; a nifty little homebrew utility which will help you figure out how much time you&#8217;ve spent playing each of the games in your steam library, which games you&#8217;ve actually played, which games you&#8217;ve never touched, and which games you spent the most time on.</p>
<p>For those of you who&#8217;ve got a bit of an impulse control problem, it could potentially help you keep your habits in check. It&#8217;s a little sobering discovering that you&#8217;ve only played about 5% of your 1000 game library, after all. Might inspire you to buy fewer games&#8230;or at the very least, get on top of playing the titles you <strong>do </strong>have.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-17768" src="http://cdn.pcmech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Steam-Time-Analysis.jpg" alt="" width="584" height="230" /></p>
<p>The platform includes a number of different features to help players visualize their gaming habits- including pie charts! For those of you who like competing with your friends, you can also compare game time and libraries with everybody else on your steam friends list.</p>
<p>Those of you who are interested in checking it out can swing by the website <a href="http://www.lambentstew.com/webblog/miniproject/steamanalysis/steam_time">here</a>. Don&#8217;t worry &#8211; no login needed. All you need to do is visit the website, enter in your Steam ID, and you&#8217;re good to go.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/17/steam-time-analysis-tool-updated/?ns_campaign=article-feed&amp;ns_mchannel=ref&amp;ns_source=steam&amp;ns_linkname=0&amp;ns_fee=0">PC Gamer</a></p>
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